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SOFTVETS

The ”Pan-European soft skills curriculum for undergraduate veterinary education – SOFTVETS”:

  • Start: 01-10-2018
  • End: 30-09-2021
  • Project Reference: 2018-1-HR01-KA203-047494
  • EU Grant: 226716 EUR
  • Coordinator: University of Zagreb - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

The intellectual outputs were developed by the project members:

  • Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Zagreb, Croatia, coordinator
  • University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Germany
  • University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Austria
  • University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (Veterinary Faculty, Faculty of Education and Faculty of Social Sciences)
  • Entrepreneurship Centre of University of Economics and Business Vienna, Austria
  • University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Hungary
  • The European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education
  • University of Medicine, Vienna (associated member), Austria
  • and approved by the IVSA Standing Committee on Veterinary Education (SCoVE).

For a comprehensive documentation see also: softvets.eu

Intellectual Outputs

...provides recommendations of life skills competences for veterinary students focusing on three key areas: communication, digital skills, entrepreneurial skills. The list of competences applies to higher education in veterinary medicine and can be integrated in whole or in part into existing curricula.

...provides a suggestion of a life skills curriculum for use in veterinary higher education. The Curriculum includes 3 courses syllabi in 3 sections: Communication skills, Entrepreneurship skills and Digital skills. The SOFTVETS life skills curriculum for use in veterinary higher education is prepared for veterinary teachers, teacher trainers, students as well as faculty management and regulating bodies. The aim of this document is to aid implementation or integration of proposed syllabi in existing curricula.

...provides training concepts for education of veterinary teachers involved in life skills teaching in 3 areas: communication, digital skills, entrepreneurial skills. Training concepts are also suitable for teachers of any veterinary subject wishing to upgrade their teaching techniques. The training ensures that teachers acquire new knowledge on topic of specific life skills, gain an insight how these topics are taught elsewhere and obtain ideas they can include in their everyday teaching.

The SOFTVETS Evaluation Questionnaire for Students and the SOFTVETS Reflection Questionnaire for Teachers were developed for higher education institutions that aim at evaluating competence-based courses.

                Project team members and all participating individuals (especially teachers and students) have gained comprehensive view on the scope, importance and necessity of life skills in veterinary education. The necessity for implementation of such skills that we have anticipated while applying for the project has only been accentuated in the year of pandemic we now live in. What has started as “a nice idea” is finding its way into strategic documents of institutions and associations, largely due to the “buzz” raised by this project and its members spreading the word, both in personal communication within institutions as well as in more formal occasions. The long term benefits of this project are systemic and include both veterinary HE as well as the veterinary profession at EU level with a special emphasis on student based teaching (competence based teaching).

                The project team worked highly interdisciplinary involving veterinarians, psychologists, communication, educational and entrepreneurship experts as well as veterinary students. They managed to extract the positive aspects of various veterinary curricula throughout Europe, which vary considerably, emphasizing the most common topics and competences that should enter future competencies curricula. Implementing new, non-professional skills into veterinary curricula is a difficult task but one has to start somewhere and the project outputs make a good aid in getting there.